US Commander: Afghan Civilian Casualties Not from US Forces - Al Pessin, Voice of America.
The top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan said he has a "distinctly different" version of the incident Sunday in Farah Province, in which some local officials are claiming more than 100 civilians were killed. General David McKiernan said the provincial governor asked for a US air strike to help Afghan police who were in a long battle Sunday with a fairly large Taliban force, which had beheaded three local officials. After the battle was over, local residents and the International Committee of the Red Cross claimed there were about two-dozen casualties, but that claim increased as the days went on. The general said a joint US-Afghan investigation has been launched, and preliminary information indicates the local reports the civilian deaths were caused by the US airstrike are wrong. "We have some other information that leads us to distinctly different conclusions about the cause of the civilian casualties. I am not going to tell you that right now until I can confirm the facts, but we do have people out there on the ground and will continue to follow this up with our Afghan counterparts to get to the truth," he said.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-05-06-voa43.cfm
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